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Making a Move: It’s Good To Talk

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

I think I’m a fair writer – I can plot and manoeuvre a reader with some degree of skill – but what I’m really proud of is my dialogue. It’s Make a Move’s major selling point. I know that sounds vain, but I’m okay with that, as I know how hard I’ve worked to get to the point that I can say I’m proud of it. I’ve spent years watching films, TV, reading books and comics, and most importantly, listening to people talking, and I’ve filtered all of that information into a list of what I do and don’t like to hear. Then I took that list and crafted it into a style that’s all mine.

A few people have said my dialogue reads like a comic, which is cool. Comic dialogue has to be lean and efficient to fit in the speech bubbles, and I try to emulate that sparsity.

The way I found an ear for dialogue, and used it to create my own style, was to listen to people talking and break down what they say into two containers: what they want to say, and what they think they should say. Next, I threw away everything in the second container.

Sound Smarter By Talking Less!

Have you listened closely when a witness to an event is interviewed on TV?

  • “I was leaving the pub when I heard a scream and the car crashed into the actual wall”. The actual wall? As opposed to what? A virtual wall?
  • “Personally, I think it was the wrong thing to do.” Is it possible to have an impersonal thought?
  • “The man himself dived in to save the kid.” Good job he didn’t dive in as someone else.

I know these are picky things, but they illustrate my point. All language is peppered with useless, often nonesensical, words (really, kind of, you know) that people use because they think that’s how people talk. It’s a belief that the more you say, the more what you say matters. I think there’s a better way: by all means talk a lot, but say a lot too.

You can see the same thing in book dialogue. A lot of writers need the security blanket of an opening “well” or “so” before they let someone speak. It’s the written equivalent of “um”. It’s almost become an accepted standard – that that’s how people talk in books. Fair enough, but it’s not how my characters talk. My characters convey the information they need to with as many words as they need and no more. The content can be trivial, or apocalyptic; high art or low art. Regardless, it’s delivered in the same economical way. It’s one way in which I created the tone of the book – people talking about epic events in minimalist, almost dismissive dialogue. Yes, it’s stylised, but it has style.

This economy of words is the key to keeping dialogue flowing. By parsing ideas down to their core concept, you can create dialogue that is portable, and once it’s portable, you can mix it up to find beats that bring your characters’ words to life.

An Example

“Freddy stared at her for a second, frustrated. He kept his voice calm. ‘That was a question,’ he said. ‘I now have no more idea of what is going on, and you’ve annoyed me’ – her eyes narrowed, so he eased off – ‘a bit.’”

I love that construction – the strong parenthetic break hiding the end of the sentence, turning it into a punchline. I try to use that technique sparingly as any stylistic tool can become tiresome if overplayed. Identifying tags and actions can be mixed into dialogue to pace the rhythm to perfection, but the spoken content has to be lean and portable. Long, multi-clause sentences just don’t arrange well.

How Much is Too Much?

I’m not sure what percentage of Make a Move is dialogue, but I know it’s a lot – more than the third of the wordcount recommended by some how-to-write books (I learned that rule quickly, and broke it twice as fast). I’ve experimented with a variety of writing styles in working towards something I’m happy with, and dialogue-heavy prose just works for me. I’ve written extended sections of action-description, really digging into the details of a situation, but I don’t find them fun to write, so I’d be a hypocrite if I expected them to be fun to read.

But it’s not just a question of taste – that kind of writing just isn’t giving me what I want, which is something that dialogue can: relationships. All of the stories have been told, and creating an intriguing character is almost impossible, but human relationships can still provide a compelling experience within an unoriginal narrative. How do the characters feel about what is happening to them? Without lines of tired exposition, the only way to find out is when they share their thoughts with each other, and allow us to listen in. Those interactions are the life of the story, the way-in for readers, and suppressing the vitality of those relationships with tired, bloated dialogue will rot a story from the inside out.

Ironically, I’ve said enough.

 

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Posted in Character, Dialogue, Story, Writing | 2 Comments »

Making a Move: Names and Faces

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Make a Move is all about the people. Plot’s important, but everybody’s just reusing the same plots – it’s how my characters react to those plot developments that gives Make a Move it’s unique tone. Originally there were going to be four main players: Freddy, Jay, Holly and “French Guy”, but I new there wasn’t enough room for four, and I didn’t have enough material to sustain the Gallic addition, so he was kicked out, only to return as Jean-Baptiste in Episode Four. Waste not, want not…

Once I had my three leads, and knew how they related to each other, Make a Move was born.

Freddy Mossman

“Not one part of me caring about you right now.”

I honestly can’t remember where the idea for Freddy’s character came from. I know where Jay came from – he was the foil for the potential mundanity that sat around Freddy’s Parisian exile, but Freddy’s origin is a mystery to me. Obviously, his background dictates his type to a large extent – MI6 recruit men and women with no distinguishing features that can be used to identify them, and his subsequent training provided his physique and demeanour. I knew I needed to break that type to an extent though, as this isn’t a military book, and I needed to inject more humanity into him. Once I had the idea for how to do that (big plot reveal from Episode Six – I’ll say no more) Freddy was… ready. Thing is, I didn’t want to detail him too much, as the more readers learn about a character (specifically, the more they learn that differs from their personality), the harder it is for them to project themselves into the story. He’s a cypher for the reader’s reaction to the situations the story presents, and I want people 100% along for the ride. I’m not a big fan of first-person perspectives right now, so Freddy, even as the star, had to take a back seat and let the reader use him as a gateway into the story. There’s a reason he’s just a silhouette on the book cover…

Jay McFarlane

“Take your mind off things with some random acts of social disorder.”

As I said before, Jay’s the opposite of Freddy. He also the person we all want to be: free, fearless, creative, vibrant, and living by his own rules. Jay walks a fine line between being an adventurer/agitator and just being an idiot, but I was careful to keep him safely within his moral framework – no matter how loose that might be. One strange occurrence I hadn’t expected when designing my characters is that all the girls love some Jay. I never tried to paint him as handsome, or even cute, but something about his personality struck a chord with my female readers. I should be put out; if anything, I’d say that Freddy is closest to my personality. Jay’s my other side though – the person I want to be, and I occasionally find when I’m at my most confidently creative. It’s no wonder that I found the interplay between Freddy and Jay so easy to write – they’re both major parts of my psyche. And, no, that’s not cheating; “write what you know.”

I’m still surprised no one noticed that my two male leads are named after the two biggest horror icons of the eighties, but it wasn’t planned that way; it really was a coincidence. Once I spotted it, I thought about it, decided it was cool, and ran with it.

Names

Speaking of which, I think I have an original way of coming up with names for characters. Most character names in books are determined by the genre of the fiction, hence the number of action adventures peopled with characters named Jack. Even if you try to steer clear of the obvious types, it’s hard to break a pattern; people just aren’t wired that way, and truly random thinking is almost impossible. I gave up trying to think of names a long time ago, so when I introduce a new character, I step from my desk to my CD collection and leaf through the credits of a random album. You’d be surprised at the variety of interesting names you can find involved in music production. A first name from one album, a surname from another, and you have a new character. Easy.

French names aren’t so easy, though. Aside from the fact that I have only two French-language albums in my collection, I don’t know enough about French naming conventions and etymology to be confident in using one at random. Luckily, there are a number of websites listing French names and detailing their origin, so I can be confident I haven’t used a name that is either archaic or regionally improbable. It’s not as random, but I’m happy with the balance.

Holly Henderson

“I’m not sure what’s worse – that you’d be comfortable asking me to do that, or that you’d think I had the contacts to arrange it.”

I left Holly until last as, out of the three, she’s the one who represents my biggest success as a writer. Freddy and Jay are two sides of my personality, so writing them is easy; I just think, “if I was in a Freddy mood, what would I do?”. Holly’s different though – guys writing about girls is hard. At thirty-five, I’d hope I’ve learned a lot about women, but I know there’s infinitely more to discover, and that gender – both your own programming and that bestowed upon you by society – is at the core of every decision you make. I was worried from the beginning that Holly just wouldn’t be believable for my female readers – something would give it away, not matter how small.

I overcame this hurdle by first accepting that I wasn’t qualified to write a female character. I’m not being proud – that’s just a fact. That done, I fell back on the adage of “fake it ‘til you make it”. I lifted stories and scenarios from the women I know well – my wife, sister and female friends – and riffed on those situations. That was working well until about midway through the book, where Holly is becoming closer with Freddy and Jay and adopting more of their mindset, at which point I did feel confident enough to write her; she was playing by my rules now, and I felt I knew her well enough to make some suggestions. There’s no feeling like having a female reader tell you they identified with Holly, and enjoyed her journey, especially as I purposefully placed obstacles and decisions before her that aren’t the normal fare of mainstream women’s fiction. Holly took a different path, and people were happy to join her for the ride.

The Best of the Rest

The episodic structure of Make a Move gave me the opportunity to introduce and remove characters exactly how and when I wanted, and that freedom gave me room to have fun. Monsieur Vasseur – the aggressively self-aware clichéd French baker. The Beautiful Spy – the adolescents’ wet dream with a bitter streak that makes your eyes water. Inspector Guischard – the Parisian policeman who would rather Freddy and his friends keep their crimes off his radar. Hector, Dunnes and Abbott – the trio of British agents delivering bad attitude, disease and high-velocity rifles to the party.

The accepted wisdom states that you shouldn’t introduce a character to a story unless they’re going to advance the plot in some way. That belief assumes that dialogue, character and tone are irrelevant, and that plot is king.

As I’ll discuss in a post covering dialogue, I honestly believe that to be the best way to write a boring book.

 

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Posted in Character, Dialogue, Story, Writing | 2 Comments »

Making a Move: The Basics

Monday, June 7th, 2010

The Old Way

I wrote the first draft of Make a Move in Microsoft Word for Mac. It wasn’t the best way to work, but it did the job and got the first draft done. I’m a big fan of not messing about when something’s working for me, so I had no reason to look elsewhere, but when I delivered the draft of Episode Six to my first readers, knowing something was wrong with it (an issue they confirmed) I was tempted to look around for a better way to write, or specifically to edit. I hate scrolling through page after page of text; I prefer to deal with individual scenes – really focus on the details and how the scene fits together – and only at the end assess the completed work. So I looked around for some writing software that would let me work the way I wanted, and I found Scrivener, and I never looked back.

Research

Thank God for the internet.

Seriously – why spend days in libraries, or researching locations, when you can look up facts and figures as you write? It’s amazing. I still like to visit locations, but thats more for inspiration and high-res photography for book jacket designs; why jump on a plane to find the ideal location for a scene when you can walk the streets of almost any major city using Google Maps Streetview, and then check out interiors via a business’ website? It’s so much easier. More importantly, it’s quicker, which frees up more time for writing. And if you care about carbon footprints, you’ll be happier.

My research method is to gather bookmarks into my “Research” folder of whatever browser I’m using (currently Google Chrome) or, if it’s an image, text/Word/PDF file or whole webpage I want to read offline, I drag it into Scrivener.

The Plan

Make a Move was easy to plan; six episodes, each requiring three main ideas. Originally it was all planned in Word files, but now I can just create 6 folders in Scriv, one for each episode, and add files for key scenes, as I’m doing now for the sequel. I try not to restrict myself by planning in too much detail as I get bored writing the story; I need to find out what happens as much as the reader, so I only put down key plot points, such as “In this scene, Freddy needs to discover this, and get from here to there”. I have files of ideas for scenes, gags, action beats, and I lift those into the scene as I go. It’s not jazz (shudder) but it’s as freeform as I can keep it while still being structured enough to get me to the end.

The Execution

I’m not a born writer; it’s hard for me to keep grinding out wordcount, but I’m getting more productive. I guess 1000 words is a good session, 2000 an amazing one. I won’t be mad at myself for only doing a couple of hundred though – that’s how it goes sometimes.

Of course, this all happens after I get started, and that can take a while…

I tend to write in my study (read: third bedroom with computer desk, bookcases and a variety of musical instruments), but it’s never been an inspiring place to write. Nowhere really works for me. My average writing session is two hours: one hour of getting ready to write followed by one hour of writing. I always sit down with the intent to write immediately, but I have to stare at the screen, re-read the previous section, think, walk about, play some guitar … it takes time to start flowing. Luckily, once I’m writing, I’m fast, so I claw the time back.

Make a Move took about two years to write, which isn’t great, but remember I said it was six episodes with three main ideas each? Most novels have three main ideas TOTAL; Make a Move really took a lot of inspiration and time to come up with coherent, entertaining, original ideas, and they didn’t all hit first time. Okay, so I’m exaggerating a bit, as episodes five and six are a two-parter sharing three ideas, but that’s still fifteen. You try thinking of fifteen narrative hooks using the same characters.

The End of the Beginning

So that was the first draft done. Two years. Okay, maybe two and a half, but who’s counting? I was pleased with how the first draft came out (apart from that issue with Episode Six) and was ready, after a short hiatus, to start editing. I’m not great at editing, but that’s okay, as I’m not great at “just getting it down” to finish the first draft. My writing tends to hit the page in a near-finished form, which also goes some way to explain why it takes me so long. I’m obsessed with the form and pacing of dialogue and action beats, and I can’t put anything down unless I know it’s my best work. In the edit, I’ll polish it further, but by then I’ll have learned more and feel I can do better than my raw effort.

I said before about the issues with Episode Six. Not wanting to reveal plot points, it involved a misjudged sub-plot, told as backstory, that just killed the pacing of the finale. Killed it dead. As I approached the edit, I knew I had to break the episode apart to fix it, which was when I turned to Scrivener as a writing tool. With all of the scenes separated, I began to delicately extricate the details that were causing problems. Translation: I deleted all of it. Like I said, I’m not great at editing, so I just delete what isn’t working and rewrite it. It’s just what works for me.

With that major flaw fixed, I just read and reread the book, over and over, until every sentence felt as polished as I could make it. I’m not talking about major rewrites – just pacing dialogue better and making sure my prose is as interesting to read as possible. With all of the episodes the same length – give or take a couple of hundred words, I knew I was there.

 

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Posted in Editing, Photography, Software, Story, Writing | 4 Comments »

Making a Move: Prologue

Friday, June 4th, 2010

I think I’ve lost sight of why I’m writing this blog, and why I decided to put Make a Move out myself. I wanted the blog to help people out – provide good information and suggestions/warnings for other writers looking to self publish – in the hope I’d be able to connect with people who shared my interests and goals. Thing is, I’m not that happy talking about myself – I’m not doing this to get famous – but that seems to be what I’m doing; I’m promoting myself as a product. That was never the plan. It’s also not much fun, and that was the whole point of starting this.

I love Make a Move; it’s an awesome book, and writing it pushed me to new levels of creativity and inspiration. It made me happy. I’m trying to sell copies of Make a Move, but I’m not marketing it, I’m marketing me. That probably explains why I’m not enjoying it as much as I thought I might; printing and typesetting and retailing aren’t fun; ideas and creativity and kick-ass dialogue are fun.

I need to dig words out of the book and get them into the wild. I need to find new ways to market the book using Freddy, Jay and Holly as my spokespersons. I need to play to my strengths and let my writing do the talking for me. I’ve already got some cool ideas…

I’m not giving up blogging about the process of self publishing; I’m getting some good traffic and I still feel I have a lot to offer those just starting out. I am, however, going to be looking into my writing more; I’m going to tone down the technology and focus on the ideas. After all – I want readers to enjoy the site as well as writers.

When I told my friends about this refocus, it confirmed my decision, as they immediately returned with topics they wanted me to discuss. I had three friends with me throughout the writing and editing, but more arrived after the book was done, and they want to learn more about the process that brought the book into being. I’m going to write five posts covering the subjects they asked about, and publish one a day next week (7th-11th June).

There. I’ve said it now, so I have to do it. It’s going to be a busy week.

 

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Posted in Blogging, Writing | No Comments »

Fear and Loathing

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

I had an idea for a new book today and, I have to admit, it scares the crap out of me. Not because I’d have a hard time writing it – it’d be easy compared to my first novel – but because I’d be putting so much into it, and taking HUGE artistic risks. The potential for failure – financial and critical – are massive, and I could end up looking like a complete amateur for even trying to tackle this project.

Yet it excites me.

I suspect that in every successful creative career, there’s a point where the artist took a risk. I took a slight risk self-publishing Make a Move, but I was reasonably confident I’d at least make my money back. It wasn’t a leap of faith. This… is something of a different magnitude.

I needed to capture this moment so I could look back at it later – either to recall this feeling of fear in taking a risk, or to loathe myself for being a loser and not jumping for it. It might not work out; there might be too many obstacles in the way, and it’s an idea I have to “sell” to at least two different parties, but I’m more interested in finding out how I respond to this situation as/if it develops. Details, hopefully, to follow.

And don’t worry, Make a Move fans: Freddy, Jay and Holly WILL be back soon. This project, by its nature, would have to be a very fast turnaround, and it could be the creative burn I need to get Make a Move 2 fired up.

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Judgement Day

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

There’s no turning back now; I just dropped a review copy of Make a Move in the post, and I can’t get it back. I knew this was a hurdle I’d have to get past at some point, but it’s still a nerve-wracking time. Creative people in the public domain always suggest against reading your reviews, but I need reviews to promote the book, so I need to know if I should draw attention to the comments, or pretend it didn’t happen. Regardless of the marketing and promotion options it gives me, I always knew I wanted to get the book reviewed by an impartial reader. I’ve received comments from people who don’t know me, and they’ve been unanimously fantastic, but they paid £12.99 for the book, so they have a vested interest in enjoying it; they want it not to suck to justify their outlay. With a reviewer, they’re just looking at your book and comparing it to the other books in its genre. If a reviewer likes it, it’s good.

I’d like to say I don’t need the validation, but I do. I can’t take myself out of the equation as I wrote the thing, so I need someone else to do that for me.

I’ve done everything I can to make sure the book receives a sympathetic review (apart from getting a friend to review it, which is ultimately pointless). I chose a local publication with a readership that sits squarely in my target demographic, and I queried the literary editor without sending in the book, who is now keen to review it himself after reading the blurb I sent. So far, it all looks good, but I’m not making any assumptions; I need this review to be objective, which means no safety net.

I’ll post a link to the review (if it’s also in the online edition of the paper) once it’s out.

Fingers crossed…

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Adverbs are for Children

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

It’s a curious coincidence that somebody sent me this link today, as I’ve been planning a post on writing tips for a while now. The problem is, I’m not a big fan of writing tips, as writing is such a personal endeavour, I think it’s incredibly pompous to think that what works for you has value for others. Also, people love to give advice whether there’s any worth to their ideas or not; the joy, for them, is in the giving.

So, this post isn’t writing advice; it’s just some changes I made to my writing and life styles that got me through Make a Move, and that are on my mind as I plan book two. Maybe there’s something in here that will inspire you to make your own changes.

The List

  • Don’t plan in too much detail. If you already know every last plot detail of a book, there’s nothing left for you, as the author, to discover. If the writing of a book isn’t filled with delights and surprises, it’s just work, and most day jobs pay better.
  • Make it as easy as possible to write. For me, this meant buying a new battery for my laptop and taking it with me everywhere. A lot of people create a sanctuary of creativity in which to work – a haven of peace and inspiration. If you need that to write, what are you doing when you’re not in it?
  • Stop watching tv. Okay – this was one bit of advice I did take on board from Stephen King (in his book, On Writing), but I added my own twist. I like tv – I think Make a Move would make a great tv show, so I’m not going to dismiss it, either as an art form or a source of inspiration. What I did instead was to break my watching habits so I watch a show in my own time, rather than when it’s on. I have Sky+ for that, but there are many ways to “time-shift” your viewing (legally…): HD/DVD recorders, catch-up tv services, hell – even a VCR. The trick is to get out of that mentality that tells you “it’s 9pm, time for show X”; that hard stop is like an incoming truck ready to crush your productivity. And try to limit yourself to having one or two shows on the go at a time unless you’re working to a 30-hour day.
  • Create demand. The first book you write has nobody waiting on it, so the only pressure to complete it comes from within. If you can, deliver it to your first readers in stages, so that their expectation for subsequent parts is driving you. Make a Move is written in six episodes, so it’s perfect for this, but any book can be broken up during the writing. Those smaller project goals make it easier to keep going too.
  • Write something new. Okay – this is a contentious one, but it applies to me, and that’s what this list is about. If you’re writing your own take on a story that’s already in print, all you’re doing is walking in someone else’s footprints, and chances are, their story was pretty good (or why else did you read it) so you’re setting the bar even higher than it needs to be. My biggest issue with this approach is that I feel like I’m copying/rehashing/riding coat-tails (choose a term based on which is least offensive to you), and I can’t think of anything more likely to sap energy and creativity. If you think you’re in familiar territory, make it REALLY different. Play with textures of writing, with readers’ expectations. Break the rules. And if you’re convinced that you can’t get away from that previous work, ask yourself if there’s even a need for your book. Maybe you should move onto the next idea instead.

Like I said, this isn’t advice; it’s just a summary of the thought processes that got me where I needed to be, but like I said above, people love to give advice, so I’m going to give in to temptation and share one cast-iron writing tip:

Adverbs are for children.

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Posted in Opinion, Writing | No Comments »

Going Non-linear

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

There’s an established process to take you from writing a book to it reaching a reader’s hands, and it goes like this: submit to an agent > agent pitches book to publisher > publisher buys, prints and distributes the book. There’s more to it than that, obviously, but that’s the bare bones (and I’m ignoring the option of bypassing the agent step as although there’s a chance of getting a deal by going direct to a publisher, 0.0001% is zero in my book). From the moment you step outside of your story-in-progress to research your potential markets and study the process, you’re conditioned to believe that this is the only route to success (not your definition of success, mind you, but everyone else’s) and that failing to make it through this process is failure.

Fair enough. Money and celebrity – or lack of – seem to be the benchmarks for success in modern culture, so let’s assume the masses know something I don’t.

So what if you can’t make it through that process, and you’re stuck without an agent? Would you keep trying for a year? Of course. How about 10 years? Maybe. How about your whole life? What if the inability to get a deal on your first book is mentally holding you back from writing your second? Would you blow your entire career waiting for someone to give you a chance?

Or would you try something else?

The Past

I submitted Make a Move to 5 agents and publishers. These were people/companies who’d expressed a taste for the kind of work my book vaguely falls into, so I thought they’d be worth a try. As I’ve said before, Make a Move is a hard sell, and I targeted people I thought would give it more than the cursory look it needs to understand why it exists. I got stock rejections from all but one of them. I was ok with that, as I’d prepared myself for that rejection, but I admit I was disappointed. A bit.

About that time, people were arriving in my life who helped me break out of that linear mindset, and stimulated me to look at other options. Readjust my perspective. Break out of the box. I recalibrated my definition of success and what my goals were in getting Make a Move out. I looked at the money in my bank account, decided that having more of it wasn’t going to make me any happier, and thought hard about what I needed from my writing. I needed connections. Ideas. Human interaction. Life.

And all of those things were there for the taking, without needing a single nod of approval from anyone in “the process”.

It’s been two months since I released Make a Move, and in that time I’ve met more cool people than I have in the previous two years. I’ve created relationships. I’ve given people ideas. I’ve changed.

The Present

I received some comments today that implied that I’m nothing more than a vanity publisher, and that my book, by definition, must bite. It’s not the first time. What was scary to witness though, was that the negativity was aimed at myself, and another writer, who have both put out work online for free download, and who are both “out there”, and that it originated from a number of unpublished, unrepresented, unfinished writers. It’s the internet, and we all know the joke about arguing on the internet, so I left it, withdrew with my honour intact, and thought about what I’d learned. And what I learned is this:

People need the validation the system gives them, as they’re too scared to say “my work is good enough to sell”. They cling to that system, even when it steals their productive years from them. Sure, the system keeps mediocre or even terrible books off the shelves, but there are more good writers than there are publishing slots, so good writers – good people – are going to be left behind.

The Future

I’m not turning my back on the system – I’d love to land a deal with a reputable publisher who could get me into the big retailers – but I’m not waiting around either. I’ll send some more submissions once I have time, but I know that establishing a readership is probably the only way I’ll find someone willing to give Make a Move a read with a view to taking it on. A lot of people dedicated to the process would call that arrogant; I call it self-aware. A lot of people would say I’ve given up; I say I’ve opened myself up to possibilities.

I’ve been thinking for some time that I’m too tuned-in to the internet and the ideas and opinions of its denizens, and today confirmed that. I’ve found a few good people online whose opinions I know I can trust, but aside from them, I’m going to tune out the noise . Take a step back and focus. Enjoy this new clarity.

I’m going to go non-linear for a while.

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Posted in Opinion, Publishing, Submissions, Writing | No Comments »

Scrivener: The Only Writing Advice You Need

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Disclaimer: I’m in no way connected with the developer of Scrivener, and I don’t benefit financially from writing about it.

So why promote it?

Because it’s that good. Writing with Scrivener is the one piece of advice I’d give any writer looking to be more productive, experimental and successful. I wrote the first draft of Make a Move in Microsoft Word, which was fine, but Episode 6 came out all wrong and needed a thorough rewrite.  I’d seen Scrivener, and decided to try it out to see if it would make the rewrite easier. I imported my Word doc, sliced the scenes up into separate files, then moved them around to fix the structure, making notes on each scene that needed fixing in more detail. I was impressed with how easy editing was in the application, so I bought a license. As I used it more, the further the application faded into the background, just letting me research, plot, write and edit as I wanted without any intrusive, misjudged design decisions interrupting my flow.

There’s one problem with Scrivener: it’s Mac-only, which means I need to write the following section to clear a couple of things up.

MacTruths

Disclaimer number 2: I like Macs, and I’m writing this on one, but I don’t hate Windows, and only mildly dislike Linux. I installed Windows 7 on my Mac for some gaming, and I like it a lot. This part isn’t about why you should switch to Mac, it’s about the realities of switching to Mac for Scrivener.

Apple computers are expensive. If you don’t have the best part of a grand (sterling) to spend on a computer, you’re not going to be buying a new Mac. But this is the buy-in price, not the total cost of ownership (TCO), and that’s what matters to me. If you buy a £500 Windows laptop, after four years it will be completely outdated and be worth nothing on the second-hand market. If you buy a base-spec Macbook (just over £800 at time of writing) after four years it will be worth around £200-300 and will sell very easily, so at a push, the TCO of the Mac is £100 more than the Windows laptop, or the same if it’s in great condition and you have a keen buyer. I’m not going to talk about bundled software, pre-installed adware, viruses, build quality or image as, like Scrivener, this is just about writing.

Regardless of TCO, that buy-in price – even on the entry-level machines – is a lot of money, but that second-hand Mac market I mentioned works both ways. You could pick up an Intel-based Macbook for a couple of hundred pounds and it would run Scrivener, as well as Office for Mac, iTunes, an email client and a web browser with speed to spare. Go back further, and as Scrivener still runs on the old PowerPC-based systems (PowerBook/iBook), you can get even more of a bargain. As long as you can install Mac OS 10.4 Tiger on it, it’ll run Scrivener.

Back to the App

So what is it that makes Scrivener so good? In short, it’s everything you need to write.

  • Any research/bookmarking applications you use can go, as Scrivener lets you drag almost any digital content into the interface to file away for reference; videos, web pages, text snippets, images, music files – they’re all supported and can be viewed/played right in the application. And it doesn’t matter how much information you drag into the application, as Scrivener uses Mac OS’s Spotlight search to let you find anything within a couple of seconds. Imagine taking your cork board and filing systems with you wherever you go, but actually being able to find things too! This is actually my favourite thing about Scrivener: as all of your research is portable, you’re not tied to that restrictive concept of your “writing space”, so you’re free to write when and where the mood takes you.
  • Scrivener lets you outline in a number of ways, but regardless of your method, nothing you write is lost. Add notes to a scene in the inspector, separate from the body text of the scene file, and it can be used later to generate the skeleton of a synopsis, to mark up editing ideas, or to keep a to-do list for that section. And again, this meta-text is searchable.
  • Scrivener supports experimentation. If you want to rewrite a scene but don’t know exactly how to do it, just take a snapshot and go for it, knowing you can roll it back if it goes wrong. And if you’re not sure where a scene should sit in the narrative, just switch to the virtual cork board and play around. Drag scenes into whatever order your feel like trying. Go nuts.
  • Scrivener doesn’t dictate style or structure in any way. They’re your ideas and words, and Scrivener respects that.
  • Scrivener is tidy. Everything is stored in a single database file, so there are no folders full of drafts and ideas to keep track of. Okay, so I still have folders elsewhere, but it’s a habit I’m determined to kill off. That single database file is so easy to backup too – either copy it manually, or zip it up and backup to another location from within the application. I have a local backup running under Time Machine and I also backup a zip every couple of days to an online directory. Scrivener makes it easy to keep my work safe.
  • It’s cheap. Not as in rushed or basic, but as in around $40 (at time of writing).

So what else does it do?

  • Fullscreen Mode – black out the rest of your desktop, and the application, and just write in plain text without distractions
  • Google search within the editor, and Dictionary/Thesaurus and Spelling/Proofreading tools provided by Mac OS – with an internet connection, you have almost all of the research tools you need.
  • Cross-file linking – allows you to link to other scenes or research information using a hyperlink, building navigation into your manuscript to aid in cross-checking. All the links are removed when you export the final draft, of course.
  • Spotlight search EVERYWHERE – if you want to see every occurrence of a character’s name, or you know someone said something, but not when, you can search for it and see the results almost instantly. There’s no need to step through a document again and again using Find Next.
  • Scriptwriting support – full auto-formatting support for scriptwriters. I never thought I’d use it when I bought it, but it was in there for when I found I needed it. Like I said above, Scrivener just replaces the need for other applications.

Of course there are some weaknesses in the application. I understand that Final Draft is more full-featured as a scriptwriting tool, and Scrivener lacks the formatting options of a standalone word-processor such as Microsoft Word or even Apple’s Pages, but this is about writing and story and ideas and pure, uninhibited creativity, not about industry standards and anchored frames. It’s easy to get caught up in the hunt for new software that will make you write better/faster/stronger – I’ve seen it happen and felt the pull of new software demos, but there really is only one 30-day trial I’d recommend, and it’s at www.literatureandlatte.com, along with an active forum and lots of tips, tricks and tutorials.

So, in summary, if you want writing advice, get Scrivener.

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Posted in Software, Writing | 3 Comments »

The Business of Creativity

Friday, January 1st, 2010

After a long Christmas break, I’m starting to think about my next steps in marketing the book. A large order from one of my retailers has forced me to look at my supplies and printing plans earlier than I’d intended, and that situation has a number of side-issues tied to it:

  • I need to maintain a stock of books for the fulfilment of web and direct sales.
  • I need to maintain a separate stock of books for potential retailers, as the last thing I want to happen is for a new retailer to place an order and not be able to satisfy it.
  • One goal for the next few weeks is to submit review copies to local publications; I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t think I was going to generate sales off the back of the reviews (thinking positive…) so I have to keep a stock of books for any sales spikes reviews cause.
  • I’m going to contact a larger retailer who may require ISBN barcodes printing on the books. A block of ISBNs takes at least two weeks to order, then I need to amend the artwork before resubmitting to the printers. I really want to avoid using ISBNs, but this is potentially a big retailer.

It all comes down to timing – making decisions and taking steps in the right order to make sure new print runs arrive just in time to avoid both running out of stock and having to sit on a new shipment (and invoice) for longer than necessary.

That second part is the main problem I’m facing as try to plan this out; even though the first print run has broken even, I’m not significantly into profit yet, certainly not to the extent that I can fund a second printing from the profits from the first. On paper, I’m in the same position I was when I started: I have to pay for the books up front. The issue this time is I don’t have a large number of pre-orders to satisfy, so I’m ordering the full print run with no guaranteed sales. It’s more risk this time, but I knew this point would come, and I’m committed to seeing it through.

So that’s where I am, and the tasks ahead of me. I know I can work through this transition by focussing on one thing at a time within the framework of the broader plan, and by working efficiently, but that doesn’t solve the other problem I’m facing: I need to start the next book.

I know that by deciding to self-publish, I’d always be fighting to balance the business with the creative process of writing, and I hope that the successes (or failures) of one endeavour will inspire the other, but it could go horribly wrong. I guess that’s why, traditionally, authors have a marketing team working for them while they write. Whether I ever land a book deal or not, it seems those days are over, so my only choice is keep working, keep generating ideas in both areas, and keep having fun.

2010 is going to be a busy year.

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Posted in Printing, Publishing, Retail, Writing | No Comments »

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